Tuesday poem #12 : Rae Armantrout : RITUALS

    1

In this now ancient ritual

a succession of young women

are saucy,

which is to say they name

common objects and relations

as if they had mastered them

but shouldn’t.

Each receives false approbation.

     2

As Xmas sells winter

to its prisoners.

As warmth

feels like love;

and love is warmth

only more capricious.

Fingers uncurl.

Organs expand

and rise

toward a surface

that must never

be broken.

Just Saying, Rae Armantrout’s most recent book of poems, was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2013.. Versed (Wesleyan, 2009) received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Award. Next Life (Wesleyan, 2007) was chosen as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2007 by The New York Times. Other recent books include Money Shot (Wesleyan, 2011,) Collected Prose (Singing Horse, 2007), Up to Speed (Wesleyan, 2004), The Pretext (Green Integer, 2001), and Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001). She is Professor of Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, San Diego. Writing in Poetry magazine, Ange Mlinko has said, “I would trade the bulk of contemporary anecdotal free verse for more incisive, chilling poetry like Armantrout’s.”

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan